Pick a block or a color and see which Minecraft Java blocks match it, using the real average color of the textures: similar blocks, a gradient between two blocks or a complementary color, with a copyable list.
Every block in this palette has a color that was not picked by eye: it is the average of the pixels of the game's own textures (Java Edition 26.1). For blocks with different textures per face, like logs and furnaces, the average weights the sides and top at 1 and the bottom at 0.25, because the bottom rarely shows in a build. Colors are compared in OKLab, a color space where numeric distance follows the difference the eye perceives: two colors less than 0.02 apart are hard to tell apart, the value the W3C CSS Color 4 specification adopts as a just noticeable difference. That does not hold in RGB, which is why an RGB search tends to group blocks that look different. 336 blocks are included: full cubes you can obtain in the game. Left out are creative-only blocks (bedrock, command blocks), waxed copper copies, blocks tinted by the biome (the 9 foliage blocks, whose texture is gray in the file) and the 25 translucent ones, like glass and ice, whose color depends on what is behind them. On open, the palette also hides ores, functional blocks and live coral, which rarely make it into a build; the filters bring them all back. Each block also has a texture noise measure, from 0 (flat, like concrete) to 27 (the cherry log), so you know which blocks clash visually. There are three kinds of palette. Similar lists the blocks with the closest color to the starting point, which can be a block or any color. Gradient picks, between two blocks, the block closest to each point on the line joining the two colors in OKLab, and the ends are the blocks you chose. Complementary splits the palette into a base (similar blocks) and an accent that uses the opposite color on the hue circle. The final list can be copied with names or with minecraft: ids, and the link stores the palette.
A build usually looks better with a few well-chosen blocks than with many. Between 3 and 5 is enough: a base block for the walls, a second one with a close color for variety, and an accent for details. The 60/30/10 split is a design recommendation, not a game rule: about 60% of the main block, 30% of the secondary and 10% of the accent. That is what the tool's percentage suggestion follows, for lists of 2 to 8 blocks.
Texture matters as much as color. Concrete has noise 0, stone 4 and the cherry log 27. Mixing blocks with similar noise gives a cohesive result, and using a flat block as a frame around a very busy one rests the eye. The calm textures filter removes blocks above 10 from the list, the range where texture starts to draw attention.
RGB describes how much light each subpixel emits, not what is seen: two pairs of colors with the same RGB distance can look very different. OKLab, published by Björn Ottosson in 2020, was tuned so that distances follow perception. The tool converts the hex code to linear light, then to OKLab, and measures the Euclidean distance between the three coordinates: lightness (L) and the green-red (a) and blue-yellow (b) axes.
For the complementary color, OKLab is read in polar coordinates (chroma and hue). The tool rotates the hue by 180 degrees keeping lightness and chroma, and looks for the blocks closest to that point. When the seed chroma is below 0.03, the color is treated as neutral and the accent contrasts in lightness instead, since gray has no opposite color.
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<a href="https://jkit.tools/en/tools/minecraft-block-palette-generator">Minecraft Block Palette Generator</a>
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Start with a base block and ask for similar ones: blocks with a close average color (a good rule of thumb is a distance below 0.03 in OKLab) make a cohesive palette. Then add an opposite-color accent with Complementary mode. Use 3 to 5 blocks and prefer textures with similar noise.
Similar blocks
Stone Bricks
#7c7c7csoft texturestart
Stone
#7e7e7esoft textureΔ 0.007
Chiseled Stone Bricks
#7a797amedium textureΔ 0.009
Pale Oak Log
#847b7abusy textureΔ 0.012
Dead Brain Coral Block
#7f7874medium textureΔ 0.014
Dead Tube Coral Block
#857d7amedium textureΔ 0.014
The percentages are our suggestion of how much of each block to use (the 60/30/10 rule), not a game rule.
Average colors of Minecraft Java Edition 26.1 textures. In OKLab, a Δ below 0.02 is barely noticeable.
Not an official Minecraft product. Not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. Block icons are from the game and shown here for reference only.